Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Why does it always have to be me?

Diligent readers may recall TFBIM's most recent surprise party wherein her friend M. showed up with a gentleman escort who was, unambiguously, not her husband.

Well.

I was minding my own business -- in this case having sent off the kitchen appliance guy with additional instructions -- when I see a phone company truck pulling up to my house. The phone company guy rings the doorbell and ta-dah! it's the ex-husband.

He had a service call half a block away and was waiting for the big truck to show up. So he started telling me his side of the story.

Starting with the part where the meteorite hits the earth and the dinosaurs die off.

It takes a special talent to turn:

"As it happens, when M. got the new job at the catering company, she started having an affair with the head* chef who was also married."

into a couple of hours. He spoke of how hard the divorce is upon their daughter, of M.'s manifest perfidy (I could have told him THAT) and how the chef's ex-wife took him for every last penny. Oh, and how M. neglects the dog.

I listened with the minimum required level of empathy, secretly wishing a plague of boils upon the truck driver who was apallingly late. Finally he materialized and I was released from my conversational fetters.